A major overhaul is in the works for New Jersey's affordable housing system.

With lawmakers in the state assembly today approving a significant measure that will revamp how each town's affordable housing obligations are determined and officially abolish a long defunct council that was tasked with overseeing the program.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis is in Trenton now with the latest.

Joanna?

Yeah, Bri.

A package of bills addressing affordable housing in the state was voted on in the assembly today.

Now experts say the state needs to develop 200,000 affordable housing units to meet the needs in new jersey.

But how to do that has been a point of contention for years.

Now, this package of bills failed in the last legislative session, but seems to be picking up some steam, at least among Democrats, at the start of this session.

The most contentious bill for 50 would abolish COA the Council on Affordable Housing and develop a new oversight body to manage what is the fourth phase of the court mandated affordable housing unit development here in the state.

Several members of the GOP that we spoke to today are strongly opposed.

What we have today is a system where builders can leverage the courts, put towns in a bad position, build far more units than the towns need to accept.

And again, fundamentally change the character of small towns all over the state.

I know have several towns in my district that are seeing flooding they've never seen before because they've got high rises going up and impervious pavement being put in.

And when when rains come down is nowhere for the water to go.

Assemblyman Jay Webber called a hypocritical of the Democratic Party that prides itself on being the party that protects the environment.

He views it as an unfunded mandate.

Assemblyman Bob Auth pushed back on the fines municipalities will face if they don't or can't meet the development timelines.

It's patently unfair to them to insist on this very, very strict timeline that they're imposing in this bill.

And then if they can't agree or comply with it, they're going to be fined.

I think the legislature should seriously be looking at our case again and going back into taking communities that are more affluent, taking a particular contribution from them and going into communities that are devastated and redeveloping, redeveloping them.

The bill has the support of several groups, including the League of Municipalities, New Jersey Citizen Action, the New Jersey Working Families Party and the New Jersey Fair Share Housing Center, whose executive director Adam Gordon, pushed back on the GOP perspective.

I think it's unfortunate that for many people, when you try to build housing for lower income families, especially black and brown families, it's framed as an unfunded mandate.

And when people try to build warehouses or office parks, you don't hear the same concerns.

We've been creating lots of affordable housing in New Jersey in a very successful way that strengthens our state's economy and that really helps make New Jersey work for everybody.

The bill heard hours of testimony on the assembly floor today.

What started as.

A ruling on the floor to advance the bill passed its first impacts.

The environment.

Transportation or municipal violence market after purchasing power to preserve what is being.

So we are finding ways to build housing and we are finding ways to supply workers to businesses that can pay 5 to $7000 a month.

But for my daughter, for families with children with disabilities, for senior citizens, everybody had the investors leave their homes that are too big and move to something, downsize.

We sit on the limited amounts of properties in strip malls that can't be used.

In the end, A4 did pass through the assembly along party lines.

The Senate version now needs to make its way through the Appropriations Committee and then through a full Senate vote.

In Trenton, I'm Joanna Gagis.